Of Lullabyes and Goodbyes
by Servant of SHEVAL
Summary: Each chapter is a different songfic, a different pairing, and a different reality of FF7. All the songs are by a notsowellknown artist, Lady Marian of Heatherdale. Give them a chance, the two genres fit eerily well.
1. Lily Maid

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** So every one of these songs was written and performed by a Canadian artist who goes by the name of Heather Dale. It's not her real name, it's her pen name, but that means it's the one you can find her with. She's a great artist, and I happened to buy her CD once... the songs are based around Arthurian Legends and characters, but upon listening to them, all I heard were the stories of people from FF7... so with a little bit of re-writing of the lyrics (only occasionally, some fit so perfectly I didn't need to), I've written a series of Songfics using many of the pieces on her CD. I hope you enjoy.

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Lily Maid

Hojo emerged triumphantly from the dank musty cellar of ShinRa mansion. He hadn't bothered to wash the blood off his hands or his clothes. He'd just finished the final touches on his most horrible experiment yet, that of Vincent Valentine... he held the sleeping form of his finest experiment carefully in his arms, wet silver hair plastered to it's tiny forehead... for now, Sephiroth happily slept.

Past the mountains of Nibelheim, a feminine form was retreating swiftly away from the imposing structure of the mansion... Hojo wouldn't follow her, if he knew she were gone. He would not seek her, or think twice about her absence, or ever find her later... only Vincent would.

Thirty years she would wait, until the day he came to find her encased in the Mako Crystal, the life drained from her body completely... she would be dressed as one would be for a funeral, as one would be if they were the person for whom the funeral was being held for, complete with a morbid bouquet of flowers, the very ones he'd first given her... He would look upon her, still as beautiful as she ever was...

_Good Sir,  
__I now present myself before you,  
__with velvet robes and lilies in my hair.  
__My ladies do their best with what they're given  
__and I only pray that you would find me fair._

And he would do all this without even having been the one to find her note. It was Hojo, in fact, who found the paper that she left. "Lucrecia!" he'd called to her many times, leisurely wandering the halls of the mansion, until he finally checked her room, where it was lying, neatly folded up on her pillow. He put down the whimpering baby boy to look at it, and finger it slowly...

_I ask you say a prayer for the planet,  
__and one more in penance for the hearts you break.  
__And keep these words forever  
__as reminder of what  
__sends a dying lily to the lake._

_Dear love of mine,  
__my sorrow clad in silver,  
__you see my thoughts return to you again.  
__You came to me as others come,  
__a-courting.  
__But nothing is with you as other men._

_I ask you say a prayer for my baby,  
__and another for my restless spirit's sake.  
__And keep these words forever  
__as reminder of what  
__sends a dying lily to the lake._

_With trembling hands, I took up your kind offer,  
__but failed to earn your favor for my own.  
__To share your glory's empty consolation,  
__for my needs are met by you and you alone._

_I ask you say a prayer for the water,  
__and another for the countless lives you take.  
__And keep these words forever  
__as reminder of what  
__sends a dying lily to the lake.  
__Please keep these words, my love, as a reminder…_

He smirked, the words on the page striking no semblance of emotion within his dark eyes. He crumpled up the paper and threw it away... so the woman had loved him, so he had only loved her for the child she could produce, his greatest achievement... he looked down fondly at Sephiroth, then hoisted him up over his shoulder again, gently patting the child's back, and shushing him as he had begun to whine... Without second thought, he walked out of the room, and locked the door behind him. _Drama, drama, drama... that's all she was... and that Vincent too... but now there's just us, isn't there, Sephiroth?_

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** This song was slightly altered, it may or may not be obvious where... the original lyrics may possibly be found by searching 'Lily Maid' and 'Heather Dale' on google or something, but they might also not be out there yet, she's not a very famous artist. If you want the original words, or even the song from me, see my screenname in my profile. Please review!


	2. Miles to Go

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** Yet another chapter. This song is edited too, and the scenario is a new one to me, I hope it comes out well! Read and review.

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Miles to Go

Cloud stared out the broken stained-glass window at the chapel. He'd taken to sitting here, day after day, watching the outside world absently through the twisted cast-iron bars. There was something different about today... a distant pitter-pattering on the ground, an animalian noise... he saw a black chocobo turning around corners and taking turns on the rubble-filled streets. He sat up a little straighter, and leaned forward to see who was coming. It was Tifa.

The swordsman immediately got up, and ran to the doors of the chapel, just as they opened in front of him. The fighter was standing there, looking up, wide-eyed...

_Walk with me, my heart,  
the gate is much to spare a place to speak,  
and the gardens put to shame the meadow's bloom._

_An _ _Eden__ set apart,  
I fancy she herself knew scent as sweet,  
I see that patch of lilies from my room._

"How long have you been living here, Cloud?" Tifa asked, keeping pace along side him as the two walked down the center aisle towards the patch of flowers that Aeris had always kept growing.

"A few months." Cloud answered with a shrug. He looked at her apologetically, then cleared his throat as she turned to see him, attempting a slight joke, "It's about time you showed up..."

_I'm glad you finally came;  
I watched you ride along the path below.  
I'm turning from that road,  
but even yet, I have so many miles to go._

"I can't go back, Tifa." he said for the countless time.

"Why not?" she pleaded.

_I've reconciled my mind,  
to living out my life within these walls.  
It's not what you had hoped to hear, I know._

_But what I hope to find  
is better sought within the chapel's halls,  
and peace is all that matters to me now._

"I have to stay here and repent... until I've atoned for all my sins." Cloud looked up at the ruined alter past the flowers. "It's a church, that's what these are for anyway, isn't it?"

"You sound like Vincent." she muttered bitterly. The comment made him smirk. "Cloud really..." she began again, her voice softer.

"I know why you're here, Tifa." Cloud said quickly, his tone almost harsh, "It's a useless pursuit."

She drew back, recoiling almost as if struck.

_I know you offer love,  
but in me now that path is overgrown.  
I'm turning from that road,  
but even yet, I have so many miles to go._

"It's because of Aeris, isn't it?" she asked, her voice blank of emotion... she couldn't speak ill of the dead, but she couldn't help but be jealous.

Cloud nodded, sighing, "It is..."

_I hear she died alone,  
surrounded by the stars that shone at night.  
And heaven wept until no tears would come._

_I swore I would atone  
for failing her and shadowing her light  
with all the things I did, and should have done._

She left him, swirling around, her long hair flowing behind her as she walked out of the church. Cloud watched her go, knowing that she would likely never come back again... it was the loss of a good friend that made his shoulder slump ever so slightly... but it had to be done... he turned to the alter, vines growing up it's collapsed form... _Goodbye, Tifa..._

_Fare thee well, my love,  
I'll watch you ride along the path below.  
I'm turning from that road,  
but even yet, I have so many miles to go._

_Even yet, I have so many miles to go._


	3. Sephiroth's Lullaby

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** So the last chapter had Tifa in it! I've never written for Tifa... but I suppose there's a first time for everything. Yet again, this song is altered for the purpose of fitting the real FF7 story, HOWEVER! Just to give you an idea of how absolutely perfect the original was for this fic, I'll say here and now, I only changed _one_ word... not including the title.

---

Sephiroth's Lullaby

The boy was born an experiment, to a neglectful father, and a dying mother. The goddess was outraged, at first, at his existence... how _dare_ they try and replace her... how _dare_ they defile her purity with his humanity... not long passed before the opinion flip-flopped in her mind... she would _not_ let these foolish mortals brainwash her child, her son. He was her son, for he had no other mother...

She regretted that she was, for now, incapable of physically meeting him... but all that would change soon... so soon. She would speak to him in his mind, praise him, raise him as her own... those humans would not have their way with him. He would be hers yet, do her bidding, her will.

As he cried in bed at night, after countless injections, and tests, she would come to him in his dreams, soothing away the hurt, preening it into strength. She would spark the idea of revenge in his mind, and tell him how to exact it. As he lay in the shadows of the night, eyes wide and awake, she would sing to him:

_Hush, child,  
the darkness will rise from the deep,  
and carry you down into sleep.  
Child, the darkness will rise from the deep,  
and carry you down into sleep._

_Son,  
I'll shape your belief,  
and you'll always know that your father's a thief,  
and you won't understand  
the cause of your grief,  
but you'll always follow  
the voices beneath, saying:  
Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, only to me._

_Son,  
your spirit will hate her,  
the flower who married your father the traitor,  
and you will expose  
his puppet behavior,  
for you are the proof  
of how we betrayed her  
loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, only to me._

_Child,  
the darkness will rise from the deep,  
and carry you down into sleep.  
Child, the darkness will rise from the deep,  
and carry you down into sleep._

_Son,  
each day you grow older,  
each moment I'm watching my vengeance unfold.  
For the child of my body,  
the flesh of my soul  
will die in returning  
the birthright he stole:  
Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, loyalty, only to me._

_Child,  
the darkness will rise from the deep,  
and carry you down into sleep.  
Child, the darkness will rise from the deep,  
and carry you down into sleep._

And after this song, he'd always been calmed... the tears on his cheeks went dry, and he drifted off into a peaceful sleep that would last 'til dawn. Jenova would smile down on her little baby boy, whom she loved so much. She had big plans for him in the future, yes... big, big plans...


	4. Tarnished Silver

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** This song is more general, and completely unedited... the others, in most cases, took me a few listenings to realize how alike FF7 characters they were, this one, on the other hand, I realized right off the bat. Hear it through.

---

Tarnished Silver

_Sleep, my tarnished silver,_

Cloud sat on the couch in the upper level of the Seventh Heaven, polishing the dark metal of his buster sword...

_let me dull you once again,_

He set it aside... he wouldn't be needing it anymore.

_and let our battle end._

_Sleep, my snowless winter,_

In the crisp outside, Tifa was walking home... rain had never fallen in Midgar before the day Aeris had healed the victims of geostigma. And now, now that it was around Christmas time, it had begun to snow... probably another miracle bestowed upon them by their dearest friend... and it was so cold...

_let me warm you once before I go,  
and I'll pretend to know and understand._

Across the sea, a similar preparation for Christmastime was beginning... a tall, once decrepit building had been being restored by it's two new inhabitants. The broken windows were repaired, the cracked wood siding patched, and repainted. Lights were hung from the windows, and a tree had been decorated and brought inside...

_Sleep, my fallen cedar,_

Vincent Valentine lay under that tree, stretched out on the festive blanket that surrounded it's base. It was massive, the top nearly touching the ceiling on the second floor. Yuffie had been mostly in charge of decorating it... she had been mostly in charge of decorating everything... the ex-Turk felt like he didn't do anything anymore...

_let me have your weakened pride to hold,  
and join my barren soil._

Yuffie, on the other hand, preferred it if Vincent didn't help. She was always restless, and always wanted things done right, and that meant that she wanted to do things herself. Nevertheless, Vincent sometimes just wished she would calm down... he'd had that effect on her already, she was much less the hyperactive adolescent she had been when they first met after having spent a few years with him...

_Sleep, my aimless river,  
let your torrent rest against my shores,_

There were still secrets that the two had not told eachother about one-another yet... but to some degree, they both liked it that way. No need knowing what you would rather not, and no need telling what it was uncomfortable for you to speak of.

_and leave me what was washed away before._

Cloud spent Christmas eve in the church. Tifa had informed them of the plans for the rest of the group to gather in ShinRa mansion to celebrate the next day... and he knew that he was most certainly up for a good party, having finally been capable of putting all his grief aside. Still, at this most magical time of year, he needed a moment to be somber... he knelt at the water's edge, the little pond that had been left behind in place of a patch of flowers. He could almost see her in it, as if it were the very same pool in which her body had so long ago sank away...

_Time's been kind to you, my love  
as the world had never been;  
kinder than to me._

_Strange, the things that we regret,_

He remembered his dream. The one in which Aeris had come to him, standing amidst the Ancient Forest... telling him that she could go alone, that she would be all right, that he need not follow her... he'd never spoken to her again.

_you wanted me to leave,  
I found enough to give you that._

Night was setting in... the sun had gone down, and no light was left within the drafty building. Yet Cloud still faithfully stayed there, praying to his first love, as if expecting some answer back... he looked up towards the alter, far across the little puddle, and looming at him out of the shadow. The entire building shuddered in the wind, made him feel unwelcome, as if he, who had let this building's caretaker die, was not wanted, and did nothing here but defile the sacred walls with his presence.

_Sleep, my darkened chapel,  
let me kneel before you now, as then,  
unworthy as I am._

He lit a candle on the alter with a weak spell from his fire materia, and it's feeble, sputtering light barely lit his hand as he drew it away, and walked back from the head of the church, down the aisle towards the door. He gave it one last glance as he opened the creaky gate into the frosty gales outside...

_Sleep, my flameless shadow,_

He had to forget about her... had to forget, for Tifa's sake... his own sake. For both their sake's, and the sake of their love... for the friendship of the rest of his companions, he could no longer let his memory waver on her as it did.

_let me cool the lingering fires of old,  
and carry only ashes in my soul._

The door slammed shut behind him as he left, boots crunching on the icy path outside. He pulled his dark coat around him, drawing the buster sword from the snowbank he'd left it in, carrying it with him in case he ran into any trouble walking home this night.

_Sleep, my tarnished silver..._


	5. Measure of a Man

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** Last song, for now, also unaltered... though for it to make total sense, one has to take a little liberty with the ending sequence of FF7.

---

Measure of a Man

_Steel on steel,_

In a flash of black leather and silvery hair, Sephiroth spun in the air, swinging his elongated sword in a wide arc around him, severing the very air with a crack and sparks of light, as Cloud artfully dodged the attack.

A golden fire swept around the ex-Soldier, as the moments passed before his enemy regained his footing and began to set up for the next attack. He was wearing the man down, he could feel it… Sephiroth was never this low, never this careless… now he could, he must use it to his advantage…

_break the blade that called him to his rest,_

Cloud charged forward, the golden light resonating from his weapon as he flew past Sephiroth, slashing straight up the man's taller body. His gloved grip loosened, and multiple shards of Masamune were sent falling to the ground, clattering on the hard rock floor loudly.

Sephiroth fell, a limp body plummeting down… but Cloud was there to catch him. He looked at the broken form of the general in his arms, his eyes still open, their usual shine glazed over in death. His pale lips were parted slightly, midway through drawing his last breath of air. Dark blood ran down the fair skin, and stained the fair silver locks…

The cave was collapsing around them, but it was long before this fact reached Cloud's mind, and he realized that he had to get away. He ran, ran without knowing where he was running, hardly weighed down by the body at all… when next he was aware of himself, he was aboard the Highwind, Sephiroth still clasped tightly in his grip.

_and cast it to the deep._

The AVLANCHE group gathered on the shores of the Northern Continent, where Highwind had first touched down after the general's defeat. They had arranged a little alter-like structure, upon which Cloud had placed his body. The mercenary now approached it silently, laying down the pieces of the longsword next to the man's cold hand. He watched his face, 'Sephiroth…'

_Light the pyre,  
name the one whose sword is on his chest,  
and leave him to his sleep._

The man stepped back, his hands clasped around a small green orb. He concentrated on the dark form lying on the wooden alter, and cast a fire spell… the red light that flickered and crackled from within the depths of the rectangular wood stack was mirrored in the water almost as brightly as was the fire in the sky…

Meteor still remained, hurtling towards the earth from outer space… Sephiroth was dead, had been killed to stop it, and it refused to turn back, still…

_Oh, the measure of a man  
stands or falls with what he leaves behind._

'Quite the legacy, Sephiroth…' he turned his mako-blue eyes up to the stars, '…not many people can take full credit for destroying the world.'

_Oh, gather on the sand,_

Once done surveying the sky, Cloud looked upon the members of his little team… they had formed a small semi-circle around the growing flames, and all were gazing at the man who lay within them, various different emotions raging through each pair of eyes.

_Let your voices carry to the sky,  
rise in light,  
let the gods look down on this and wonder…_

Cloud hoped they were looking down… he hoped Aeris could see this. That she could see how he had avenged her. He prayed silently that maybe, even now, there was some way his poor soul could be redeemed from the evil it had done. Both he, and Sephiroth's…

He looked down at the body again. The fire was rising… it had not yet reached the man, arranged on top. Cloud had scrubbed the dried blood off his face, and neatly flattened the leather of his coat about him, doing his best to clean that as well in the little time that he had…

_Raise the ring,  
cast the broken circle to the waves  
and give the sea her due._

The ex-Soldier glanced down at his hand, slowly removing the heavy glove, and letting it fall carelessly to the beach. He worked a thin silver band off his middle-finger, and, hesitating only a moment, as he surveyed it yet a little closer, he threw it into the blaze, watching the soft metal soon melt away… the little memento of Sephiroth's from back in their Soldier days…

True, he had many friends now, who all cared about him in their own way… but as he thought about it, when he was with ShinRa had really been the best days of his life. He'd trade in all of them, any number of the people who stood around him now, just to have Zack back… and Sephiroth. The old Sephiroth, the way he was before…

_Push the prow,  
let him lead the final charge again,  
where all will follow soon._

Always a leader, always in charge, and always protecting them all… he'd never send his comrades during a mission out somewhere that he himself hadn't been first… even in death he did the same…

And even in death, it seemed, Cloud would follow, as the Soldier's eyes were now back on the stars, the pulsing red one in particular, too close for comfort… it wouldn't be long now.

He would meet him again, he supposed… even as the leather melted away, and the long silvery hair curled into nothing, the sickly stench of it all permeating the cool night air. Cloud would see Sephiroth again, but… it seemed they would all gladly follow. Not one of them stirred from eachother's sides as the makeshift ceremony carried on into the night.

_Oh, the measure of a man,  
stands or falls with what he leaves behind.  
Oh, gather on the sand,  
let your voices carry to the sky._

Tifa was crying, the memory of her good friend resurfacing as she watched the woman's killer be eaten away by the merciless flames… the same way that he, after having murdered her father so many years ago, had disappeared among the smoke and ashes of Nibelheim. Still, even after all that, and now, this didn't seem like a fitting end for him… should he not have been given some mercy?

Cid was quiet as well. This man he'd barely heard a thing about had taken Aeris away… and Aeris had been like a daughter to him. But how well did he really know them?

Cait Sith and Nanaki were quiet… they had both had fond feelings for the Ancient as well, yet once again, neither had ever felt an exceptional hate for Sephiroth… still, the spectacle silenced them both.

Barret, too, had no words to say, and no tears to shed. But he stood in silent salute. He'd never been a part of a military, but the ex-general, of course, had… he felt the dead man deserved the gesture.

Yuffie's head was bowed, and her hands were folded together in front of her. She made no noise, not even the tiniest breath, but her lips moved nonstop in prayer…

Vincent watched with a guarded gaze as the body of Lucrecia's son was devoured by the fire. The child of his only love was disappearing into nothingness right before his eyes… He couldn't seem to decide if they'd done the right thing after all… if they'd put the miserable puppet to rest, or if he'd forsaken him as well… if he'd finally achieved atonement, or if yet one more sin had now been added to his large repertoire.

_Rise in light,_

The lifestream was gathering, and through smoke and tears, each one of them in turned moved their eyes to the blanket of night that had long since settled in overhead. It was now being overcome by a vivid green, all moving rapidly toward Midgar.

Within that swirling miasma of green, Sephiroth's essence formed right alongside Aeris'. The flowergirl smiled her gentle smile, and reached out to the ex-general… only a moment's hesitation passed before he understood, and reached back out to her, taking the offered hand… Together, the two directed the lifestream as one, as it exerted all of it's force to fending off meteor.

Their combined attempt had succeeded. Any and all survivors down on earth heaved one large sigh of relief, it had been a true miracle, for sure. Neither one could either preserve or destroy the planet entirely on their own… Sephiroth had the help of Jenova, but now Aeris had the help of Sephiroth.

On the beach, still, the fire had died. Even the glow of its orange embers had faded. They did not know what happened to meteor, they only knew it was gone, and all of them seemed equally content at that as they had been to all die together only moments before. One by one, they had returned to the deck of the Highwind.

The cold of night settled, and Cloud was the only one left standing there. He tentatively approached the mound of ashes, the first tear only now sliding down his cheek. The wind blew, playing with the grey dust, washing a great deal of it into the water, to be eaten up by the waves. He bent, falling to his knees amidst it all, dirtying his clothes, but he didn't care. He plunged a hand deep down into it, and pulled it up full of the man's remains.

He bit his lip to keep it from quivering, before he bowed his head and said, "Rest in peace, Sephiroth."

_Let the gods look down on this, and wonder._

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **So it's a little slashy… it happens. I hope you all liked these preliminary songfics of mine. Perhaps more will come out of it! In case you haven't already realized, they take place in all different universes and times… but that's all. Review, and goodbye!


	6. May Queen

May Queen 

_I went to meet her for a friend, a beloved friend  
__who knew he couldn't be there, and knew someone should be._

A beautiful early-summer day. Cloud walked down the path from his doorstep, and to the left... toward that oh-so-familiar house of his neighbor, casting an idle glance up at the mansion.

There stood Vincent at the front door, looking more nervous than the swordsman remembered him being even as they descended into the depths of the Northern Crater. That made him smirk a little bit.

The rest of the procession and guests were already present, sitting in folding chairs out in the front lawn. In the background, behind the somewhat jittery Vincent were some blue suitcases by the door. His gaze was directed back to the gunman as he made an obvious attempt to catch his eye.

Cloud smiled broadly at the man, who barely managed a smirk back.

_We love eachother, he and I... a brother's love he'd say.  
__So who else would he send to bring his bride that day?_

With a sigh, he stopped one last moment before the door to her house, looking down at himself, and gently smoothing the creases in his navy suit, before reaching for the handle. It opened without him even touching it.

"Ta-da!" came a call, Yuffie and Elena grinning broadly from their bride's maid dresses as they stepped to the side and revealed the woman behind them...

_They said she's lovely as the Spring. Imagine my surprise  
__to find that they were right, and hadn't said the half._

His breath was absolutely taken away as he saw Tifa, her hair lightly curled, framing her blushing face beautifully as she smiled, a larger and truer smile than he'd ever seen on the girl's face in all his lifetime. Delicate jewelry sparkled in the light, streaming down from the broken cloudcover, which gleamed over her glossed lips.

Elegant lace was netted over her arms, and in small white gloves, her hands clutched a bouquet of white baby's breath, and red roses. The body of the dress was a beautiful brocade, with a plain white skirt that spilled out beautifully from beneath it, trailing behind her on the ground.

_The careless sunlight in her eyes, and petals in her hair...  
__I saw how he cloud love her, the May Queen standing there.  
__And in that moment I understood how he could love her,_

Cloud swallowed nervously. Something about that sight had just... touched a place within him, and elicited a feeling he didn't understand.

"Well, what do you think?" excitedly pressed Yuffie.

Cloud's lips curled into a smile, a somewhat strained smile, as he held out an elbow for Tifa to hook her arm around as he walked her up the aisle... her father was dead, so her childhood friend had been the next best thing. "Beautiful." he managed to mutter, as Tifa joyfully twined her arm around his.

"Let's go." she squeaked.

_and what they shared would never be for me._

Cloud nodded, and led her up the way, taking his seat in the front row, next to Cid and Yuffie, with Elena on her other side.

The ceremony was everything he imagined the couple could have hoped it would be... absolutely wonderful, and both were in tears by the end... Vincent, as usual, in his silent way... Tifa with her shoulders shaking, and sobs of joy being gasped every next second.

"Speak now, or forever hold your peace." he heard said...

_I understood, but yet I've never really conquered  
__that part inside that wishes it had been me._

As the moment passed, something tightened in his stomach. He'd jumped at that line, and didn't listen as the priest continued... why had his impulse been to just... call out?

"Do you, Vincent Valentine take you, Tifa Lockheart to be your wedded wife?"

Cloud closed his eyes and slowly breathed out.

"I do."

"Do you, Tifa Lockheart take you, Vincent valentine to be your-"

"I do."

He bit his lip... that image throbbed in his mind, flipping back and forth... Tifa and Vincent, Tifa and he... he opened his eyes to see the two embracing before the crowd, and was suddenly aware of everyone around him clapping... going through the motions, he joined in too. But a part of him was up there with the two. Up there instead of Vincent.

_And I was staring at the sun for hours the morning after,  
__trying to burn it from my eyes._

The next day, Cloud awoke with the dark thought of what the two newlyweds might have been doing the whole night since Vincent carried her off into the mansion after the wedding... and to an annoying hammering sound. Looking out the window it was revealed to be someone putting up a sign in front of Tifa's house 'For Sale'.

With a sigh he got up. Oh, how things changed.

Looking out the window again, after he'd finished getting dressed, he saw those very two, Vincent and Tifa walking hand in hand down the road.

_He's never been what I can't help but see when he is with her._

Nevertheless, he hurried down the stairs, and opened the door to his house, running out to assail them before they walked past.

"Vincent!" he called out. The man turned his head, and stopped just in time to be met by a somewhat breathless Cloud. Tifa looked up at him confused.

"In... um, in all the... well, chaos after everything yesterday..." he stuttered awkwardly, "I, uh... well, I never got to really congratulate you two." he gave a sad smile.

"Oh, Cloud..." Tifa murmured with a smile. For the moment, he ignored her, extending a hand out to Vincent.

He looked at it silently for a moment, his red eyes constantly flashing up to Cloud's face as he did so, before slowly taking it, and shaking with a smile. "Thank you, Cloud. From you, it means alot to me."

Cloud nodded, then as he slowly let go, looked to Tifa. The two paused for a long time on one another, before she reached up and embraced him. With a grateful sigh, he held her there for a long moment, before eventually letting to.

_And so of course, I wished them joy... else, what friend would I be?_

"That's, um..." he began nervously again, stepping back, "That's all..."

Vincent nodded, then turned to his wife, giving a smile the likes of which had never graced his lips before, "Well, don't you think we should continue on?" he suggested.

"Of course... we were just going out for a little bit today." Tifa explained, then gave a small wave as they moved on. "Bye, Cloud."

"Yes..." The swordsman whispered to himself as they left, "...bye."

_And in that moment I understood how he could love her,  
__and what they shared would never be for me.  
__I understood, but yet I've never really conquered  
__that part inside that wishes it had been me._

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** So! My two least favorite pairings in the existence of the game here! But I hope I did them justice for you all that like them. There was nothing else but this that I saw when I heard it. Originally, it had been Cloud and Tifa's wedding, but then I realized it made more sense this way. The song was not rewritten at all.


	7. Lady of the Lake

Lady of the Lake

_He was young, and he rode along the river,  
__raven-haired,_

'Never seen this corner of the world up close before...' thought the Soldier as he drifted down the shell-strewn paths, wandering downward through the ethereal glowing trees.

_the fairest thing to grace those steady banks  
__in ages come and lost forever._

He drew near to a clear pool beside a great, house-like conch shell, and looked down into it.

_And power laid upon him  
__like a thousand secrets she would never know…_

'What is that?' thought the girl, drawn out of her current dealings, and awakened from her sleep. Emerald eyes snapped open beneath the crystal water, and looked upward at a distorted figure, blue and black.

_And so she spoke.  
__In the lapping of the land,  
__golden-tongued,_

"Who are you? What do you want? Why are you here? Where are you going?"

'Hm? What...? Who?' he looked around. Something was... calling to him. Something like what he hadn't heard since the day he died. 'The planet?' He drew nearer into the sparkling white sands on the banks of the little pool.

_her whispers fickle jewels along the sand,  
__ephemeral and softly spoken._

'I think I... can hear it...' he thought to himself, looking into the water, before taking a timid step...

_But he was wiser than his years,  
__and ran along to met her there among the reeds,  
__where earth recedes._

There was peace for a time, nothing happened... but something felt like it should have. And so he waited.

_There he stood  
__as the silt caressed the bottoms of his feet,_

Then, all of a sudden, without any rhyme or reason, the surface began rippling and churning. He almost wanted to back out, and would have for fear, if he were not already dead. What worse could happen to him?

_circles formed: growing outward, __drawing inward, __gaining strength and going homeward  
__in the trumpeting of swans,  
__in lilies laced upon a pond._

The little lotus flowers and green algae around the edge were shoved up against the shore as something came bursting out of the middle.

_She rose before him like the ice before the Spring_

Silver eyes widened at the sight, and his breath was stolen away, not that he needed it anyway. She wore a gown of water and mako-crystal-sand, and a crown of lily flowers drawn around her as she floated above the surface of the lake.

_and was a Queen._

But before he could so much as stutter a word, wet tears came to her eyes and shined down her face as pale lips, lavender from death and a watery burial curled into a smile on her face, "Zack..." she breathed.

He ran to her.

_And their touch was like a lover's,  
__clear and sweet._

"It's about time you got around to joining me in the afterlife..." he murmured softly as he smiled, holding her thin shoulders gently in his strong arms, and looking down at her joyful face. "...Aeris."

_Drenching and enfolding with no need for air or sunlight in the deep._

"I'm so glad I got to see you..." the girl breathed, as they sunk below the surface again, "But I've got some things I need to do..." she showed him, "Some people I have to look after."

Zack, confused for only a moment, slowly smiled as she revealed her plan. "Ah... Cloud, you mean..." he murmured. "That boy's a piece of work. I'll help you, if you need it." he offered gently.

She turned and smiled to him, "Thanks..." the girl gently tilted her head upwards, and moved up for a sweet, innocent kiss.

Zack grinned. How very like her.

_And in the passions that they bared,  
__in pledges won and secrets shared,  
__they'd stand together in what destiny would bring,  
__and crown a king._

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Didn't quite fit... but I needed to work Zack in here somehow... and reading the title 'Lady of the Lake' just made my thoughts SCREAM Aeris.


	8. Exile

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** Lucrecia's perspective. I loved this song. I read it, heard it, and thought Lucrecia almost immediately. I hope she doesn't seem... annoying in this fic. She's certainly indecisive... I blame being pregnant.

---

Exile

"Will you marry me?"

"Oh..." Her eyes went wide, and all the breath left her body. Time seemed to stop on that sunny summer day as Vincent Valentine gently held her hand, looking up at her with those big brown eyes of his... yet still, Lucrecia couldn't help but notice the details...

...particularly his posture. Vincent was a Turk... and he was the job entirely. He knelt, but so carefully so that the perfectly creased pants of his uniform did not so much as touch the ground, and she took note of the determined care he'd made of this... it made her frown.

_You're begging on your knees without dirtying your hem.  
__You want someone to love, but not someone I can._

"I... I can't." she said, swallowing, and shaking her head, stepping back.

The poor boy looked positively dumbstruck, as he quickly rose up and relinquished her hand, which she was already beginning to tug back on.

"I-I... I'm sorry, I..." he tried to stutter out, though had obviously not prepared for this response. Lucrecia could already feel tears welling in her eyes.

"No, I'm sorry!" she choked as she turned... and ran.

_Wilderness calls me again...  
a trusted friend in my exile.  
__I'm free in my exile._

Into the mountains she ran, with the hard rock path positively destroying her feminine shoes. Her hair soon fell out of the delicate bow she'd knotted in it, with all the running she was doing. She heard, and felt her clothes tear on vines and briars she passed.

_The stringless thorns replace the fishhooks in my flesh._

Yes, she'd loved them both. But Vincent was just... not for her. It could never be. The poor boy...

And now Hojo was closing in, sensing his victory. He'd been parading around with that triumphant smile lately, in the days since the Turk's rejection... and attributed it to 'a new breakthrough' to anyone who asked. Though no such breakthrough had occurred.

...but it did come.

_You try to draw me in, but still deny the net.  
__You're clinging to what I have left..._

Soon enough, Lucrecia would not be able to deny that Hojo no longer loved her. But loved her merely for that thing growing in her belly. In those days she'd sit alone by the fire, long after Hojo had retired from his lab, and Vincent had meekly treaded past to his room. She's sit up, crying, and wishing she could just try again, and start it all over. And some nights, when this became too much, she would just leave.

_while I forget in my exile.  
__I'm free in my exile, I'm free to forget._

The mountains around Nibelheim were the only distractions she had then... Hojo wouldn't even admit her to carry out small, meaningless tasks in the lab. She was only ever even in his presence when he was studying her progress. Some days he would ask her why she had scratches on her legs and hands, and she would just be silent.

_My brand: these rags and tatters on my feet.  
__Here are tests I know that I can meet._

It became too much.

"Just... just please... let me run away." she begged, a thing she never thought she'd do. "Your job is to protect me, please, then that's the only thing you could do!" she sat in tears at Vincent's bedside after having woken him up to talk one night.

"I don't understand." he softly said. "Why?"

"Because I can't take it anymore!" she cried, "What Hojo's doing to me, and to my baby..." a sniff as she drew her sleeve over her eyes.

"Lucrecia..." he murmured, taking her into his arms. She opened her eyes then.

_You say that I am weak, and kiss the tears away.  
__You offer what I need, for more than I can pay._

"I was going to leave anyway. I put in with ShinRa for a transfer weeks ago. Come with me." he said.

_My choice is who I should betray..._

"Vincent..." she pulled away slightly, attempting to look at him. His face was... strange, impossible to read. Half-mast eyes, perhaps from sleep, thin lips... it was... stern, and at the same time frightened and hopeful, but determined.

"Come with _you_?" she repeated, "You were... you were just going to _leave me_? With _him_!" she demanded.

The man's eyes widened, "Wh- no... Lucrecia!"

But she was already gone. Off the bed, and out the door. It slammed behind her.

_...or to stay in my exile._

Into the mountains again.

_I'm free in my exile, I'm free to stay._

'At least here I'm not being tossed around between people like some ragdoll...' she thought, tearstained face, running in the moonlight. 'Does anybody really give a damn anyway?'

_I'm free in my exile.  
__I'm free in my exile, I'm free._

She wondered if she would ever leave ShinRa mansion. At first she'd liked the thought of it. Removed from the world, beautiful and serene. Now when she looked at it, it was oppressive, mocking, and dark. She just wanted out... by any means possible.

Even death.

_I'm free again._


	9. Three Queens

Three Queens

_Sink into your Mother's arms,_

_the womb that gave you birth._

The blast created by Loz and Yazoo had knocked him out. He thought for good, but then he heard a soft voice calling to him, and a soft embrace wrapping around him.

"Mom?" he asked.

-

Aeris had been his confidant. No other among his party could possibly be so understanding... of course, he couldn't tell even her about the ordeal with Zack. But everything... everything else, she knew.

_Let her take your secrets back and lay them in the earth._

_Let her take you in her arms,_

_let her take you home._

It had been because of that, mostly, that he had felt the pain of her leaving him... but she had always been able to call him back from the edge of death himself in other battles of the past that had turned bad on him for the last moment... and she'd done it yet again.

-

_Let her take you home._

_Leave to her the gifts she gave of flesh, and breath, and bone._

Once more she'd saved his life, he realized, as his eyes opened in the church, feeling the wetness of the water, the heat of the sun. But even through all that... he had never really... loved her.

His eyes caught sight of his companions massed on the shore... one in particular.

Love... he had Tifa for that.

_Sink into your Lover's arms,_

_the womb that made you whole._

He thought of that one night as he held her... her skin cool and soft against his own. He'd always been searching for a purpose his entire life. Perhaps not that, even. He thought it had been that, but truly... not a purpose, but a place. He'd just wanted someone to love, and to love him back...

_Let her waters slake the thirst you carry in your soul._

Tifa gave him that.

_Let her take you in her arms,_

_let her take you home._

And she had certainly made a place for him as well, in her heart, and in her home.

_Let her take you home._

And the things they'd been through together... sadness, joy, hard times, good times, battle, peace... and so many plans they'd come up with together, daring and wild or even the occasional one that was logical.

_Leave to her the dreams you made of honor, steel, and stone._

One thing terrified Cloud to this day. Not Sephiroth, and not death... but insanity. One such that he had experienced after falling into the lifestream and washing ashore in Mideel. Trapped in his own mind, unable to escape the horrors that lay there with him... the guilt and fear of failing Aeris.

_Sink into your Mother's arms..._

And all the time Tifa was there with him. He loved her, and silently thanked her so much for that, knowing she couldn't hear, knowing she didn't need the thanks, and would just as soon stay by his side all that time getting no recognition whatsoever.

_Sink into your Lover's arms..._

But in truth... beyond all that, overcoming his grief, and being cared for by Tifa, it was someone else who had pulled him out of the rut he'd gotten stuck into, created by fear and doubt after that horrible experience.

_Sink into your Sister's arms..._

That was Yuffie.

_...the womb you need not know._

She was like the annoying little sister he never wanted... but still loved so much. In a different, familial sort of way. She always, somehow, managed to cheer him up.

_Let her fires consume the frame of what you were before._

_Let her take you in her arms,_

_let her take you home._

"Chin up, Cloudy." she'd say with a grin, "Just because your name is depressing, 'Cloud Strife' doesn't mean you have to be. You're getting like Vincent."

The gunman scowled at that as they walked by him in the hallways of the Highwind. Though he soon disappeared into another room. Cloud laughed, and Yuffie grinned.

"That's the spirit!" she said triumphantly, and spun around, and left him, trouncing along toward her room, singing 'You are my Sunshine' in between short bouts of seasickness where she stopped, held her mouth for a moment, then continued on with the lyrics, but in a slightly different key than before.

_Let her take you home._

_Leave to her the mysteries of Maiden, Mother, Crone._

She was the nurturing type of person Cloud could see growing old and having tons of little children and grandchildren, sitting by the fire and telling them stories of her... rather wild youth. Or, if not that, then he'd be telling the stories, as 'Uncle Cloud' or some other ridiculous nickname. Embarrassing things that Yuffie wouldn't dare to reveal herself.

He imagined that of the three, Yuffie had the best title, and dearest place in his heart.

_Sink into your Mother's arms..._

_Sink into your Lover's arms..._

_Sink into your Sister's arms..._

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Not quite what I thought it would be... but still good... I think. Not enough description here... songfics have that problem with me, I just focus on facts and explaining the relevance of the lyrics, and leave out everything pretty and interesting. Ah... oh well.


	10. Adrift

Adrift

Moonlight streamed in the window, broken by drifting dark clouds... for hours, it seemed, this movement of light and wind had captivated and mesmerized him, as Sephiroth stared silently out the huge windows at the Nibelheim Inn. He heaved a sigh... something about this town... he'd never been here before, and yet... something seemed... so familiar.

Glowing green emerald eyes darted from the shadowwy shape of the ShinRa mansion, to the far-off mountains they'd come back from just today.

A shifting behind him alerted him to when and where he actually was again, and he turned around to look.

The sleepy blue eyes of the boy in his bed met him, as a thin arm raised up, and a small hand ran its fingers through his wild blonde hair. "Sephiroth?" he muttered, squinting in the blinding silver of the moon outside. "What are you doing?"

The general sighed and looked down at the floor. "I... couldn't sleep."

"It's more than that." said the boy in the bed, turning over onto his stomach, his bare shoulderblades poking out from under the blanket. He spoke as if he'd had this exact same exchange countless times before, and wanted to just cut to the chase. "What's wrong?"

Sephiroth swallowed. Weakness... he hated it. And there were two of them right now... the thing that was bothering so much, and being pressed to admit it by Cloud.

"_Lover, dear lover, I've had a fell dream:  
__My mother's adrift on the sea._"

Cloud blinked, confused, "Your... your who?" he muttered, rubbing his eyes as if wondering if this was just a strange dream of his own.

Sephiroth sighed, shook his head, and continued.

"_My brothers have left her alone in the gale,  
__there's no-one to save her but me._"

Hojo's words rang out in his head, things from long ago that he thought he hadn't even listened to. 'Jenova. We took her out, got samples, did what we needed to do with her, and then shut her right back up in that reactor where she was found. After all... you can't take something as old as her out of her environment for long before she begins to deteriorate.' he'd tried to justify the awful-sounding routine of scientific collection... but that didn't do it for Sephiroth now that he had actually seen what she was doing inside that reactor. The monsters she'd made... Obviously, she wasn't happy with her current situation. But it wasn't like they had the necessary intelligence to get her out.

Cloud shook his head, "Sephiroth, I thought you didn't..." he stopped, thinking. This was a touchy subject, he wasn't exactly sure he wanted to get into it, "...I thought... you didn't know your mother."

Sephiroth sighed and shook his head, at last getting up from his seat in a chair by the window. "I didn't. I..." he looked up as he walked over, a sheet from the bed pulled loosely around his hips. His eyes held strange emotions Cloud had never seen in them before: Fear, doubt, worry, weakness. "...I'm probably just tired." he said with a definitive nod and a smile as he sat back down beside the boy, then hunched over and sighed, his head in a hand.

Cloud bit his lip a little and sat up, gently resting a hand on the general's shoulder, and pushing him lightly down.

_My dear, my dear, lay down your fair head.  
__I've given you love, and I've given my bed,  
__and your mother is sleeping,  
__she's well and she's hale._

"Come on," the boy said when they were once again side-by-side, and his pale arms were wrapped around the general's middle, "Get back to sleep." he closed his eyes, and buried his head into Sephiroth's bare chest, making the man smile just a little. The hair tickled... and so did the hot, steady breath against his cold skin.

-

_Lover, dear lover, she's crying my name:_

'**_Sephiroth..._**'

_My mother's adrift on the sea._

With a sigh, Cloud again ventured down the spiraling stairs of ShinRa mansion. He'd been doing this for weeks now... if Sephiroth really wanted to hole himself up here, and not take care of himself... well, someone had to.

He carefully balanced a tray of food, water, toast, and soup. The best of the boy's abilities, given the small grocery store in the town and a microwave. He proceeded down the dark, cavelike hallway a little nervously. He'd always hated this place...

As always, the door at the end was shut, but not locked. Sephiroth had given in and chosen to just keep it open to let Cloud in, rather than to have to get up and do it himself every time the boy came knocking. He no longer wanted to be disturbed from his studies in that way.

_She's none to protect her, no oar and no sail,  
__there's no-one to save her but me._

The boy sighed. Sephiroth was getting obsessed... ever since that incident at the reactor it was just getting worse and worse. And the general was more and more distant. He no longer even came back to bed at night.

A light was on in the study off to the side of the main lab, and Cloud walked down into it. A sputtering candle was lit next to the general, sitting at the desk, and hunched over a huge dusty volume. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was paler than usual... and thinner.

_My dear, my dear, another will come._

"Sephiroth... please..." Cloud begged again, setting his burden down beside the man, and amazingly not spilling anything. "...eat something. You're going to starve to death if you go on like this.

The general was silent, and just turned away, resting his head on his arm and looking at the book sideways. The candle was fading fast.

The boy sighed. "Let's at least get you some light in here... you're going to go blind." he murmured, "...even if your eyes do glow." He reached up, and pulled aside a shade on a small, dusty window behind the desk, and the pale light streamed in.

_I've given you family, I'd give you the sun,_

"No..." came a soft whisper behind him, and he turned around.

"Hm?" Cloud blinked, as he looked at Sephiroth, "What, you like it there in the dark?"

"Don't hurt her..." came a meek beg.

"What?" he drew closer, and bent over the general, watching him closely. He was asleep... dreaming. With a defeated sigh, Cloud looked around the room, finding, tossed to the side, the blanket he'd brought down yesterday when this had happened.

_and your mother is singing,  
__she's well and she's hale._

-

Crashes and screams awoke him from his sleep that night, and he looked around fearfully to see that the midnight skies were glowing with a red light. He stumbled out of bed, and found himself pulling on his uniform, and running outside.

Fire sprang up from all the buildings around him, blood and bodies lay in the square. Smoke stung his eyes and his breath, but he was in tears before even that had hit him. Miraculously, he could make out two shapes retreating into the darkness... one he didn't recognize, the other hefting the huge weight of a buster sword. They ran into the mountains... and he followed.

By the time he got into the reactor, he saw that the carnage had already occured. Tifa, the first figure, he imagined, lay in a pool of her own blood on the ground, crumpled up at the bottom of the stairs. And Zack was splayed out on top of one of the little capsules in the front room of the reactor, his back bent over it in a way he was sure a human's body was not meant to go. His eyes were shut, he barely breathed, and his sword lay well out of reach of his outstretched hand.

Cloud did the only thing he could do. He grabbed the weapon, and ran up the stairs.

"Sephiroth!" he screamed, seeing the darkly cloaked man standing ominously at the top of the stairs. The general did not do so much as turn around to look at him before proceeding into the room beyond.

He could barely see anymore by the time he got there, his chest heaving from the effort of the run, and the weighty sword, as he leaned in the doorway and watched the man, with a twisted childlike smile on his face, cradling a disgusting, but recognizable blue head.

"Jenova..." the general murmured, "Mother..."

"Sephiroth, why are you doing this!" Cloud demanded wildly, his voice breaking.

Sephiroth turned to him then, the mad grin spreading.

"_Lover, dear lover, there are tears on her gown:  
__My mother's adrift on the sea.  
__Her sons have all left her, I cannot now fail,  
__there's no-one to save her but me._"

Cloud felt the sharp sting of Masamune's impact into his stomach, and the strange sensation of become weightless as he was lifted up off his feet, and dangled over the chasm into the reactor core.

"And I won't let you hurt her anymore." Sephiroth hissed.

Choking down blood and tears, Cloud weakly gripped the blade, though pulling it out would be impossible, and useless. "You... you don't... understand..." he barely managed, dragging himself closer down the silver-stained-red.

"_My dear, my dear, you've seen an untruth.  
__I've given you joy and I've given you youth,  
__and your mother has comfort,  
__she's well and she's hale._"

"Liar! I saw what you were doing to her!" Sephiroth yelled, his voice alight with emotion: fury and sadness.

"It... it wasn't me." Cloud begged, still dragging himself closer as he felt his entire lower body becoming drenched in the hot red liquid that poured from the skin around where Sephiroth's sword entered, "It wasn't us! Not Zack, and not Tifa... not me, or my hometown... why did you do it, Sephiroth? Why? WHY!"

For the moment, the general was silent, and seemingly distracted, that was all that Cloud needed. One final pull, and his toes touched the metal floor. With his last strength, he twisted his body, and the wide-eyed Soldier, still clutching strongly to the hilt of the blade was dragged with it over the edge.

The sword slipped out of Cloud's middle, and he sunk to his knees, and watched as the man fell silently, still holding to his mother with all of his strength.

"_Don't let your feet touch the earth_"  
he spluttered, something hot dripping from the corners of his mouth as Sephiroth continued to plummet towards the ground. The delusional boy toppling over onto his side on the cold floor, repeating the rules of an old childhood game... something he and his friends used to do in the old playground which, of course, had probably already burned to the ground by now.

'You touch the ground and you die!' called one voice from the top of the monkey bars.

But some semblence of an understanding of relevance remained. When Sephiroth hit the bottom of the reactor... that was it. He didn't want Sephiroth to touch the ground… he didn't want Sephiroth to die… what had he done?

'But I'm stuck!' said a little girl on the swings.

'Hey, come here!' a smiling boyish face said, beckoning over to Cloud, who had just confusedly stumbled into the game, 'Play with us! Come here to me!'

"_Come back to me_..."  
Cloud begged, his vision returning to the cold green glow of the mako reactor, Sephiroth having long since faded away... He closed his eyes. He didn't want to see anymore.

"_Come back to me_..."

---

**Author's Note Thingy:** Not quite the way I thought it would be. I really like the beginning, and I really like the end, not so sure about the middle. Quite rewritten... oh well. I thought of two things when I heard this... Sephiroth's going-insane story, and an AU future kind of thing, that you'll read next. This one's very slightly less rewritten, but... oh well. Enjoy!

---

Adrift

"What is it Cloud?" she asked, pulling herself up until she was leaning back on her elbows, watching the dark shape of the man beside her sitting up, bent over, his head on his knees.

"..."

"Cloud?"

He turned to her, his expression was so strange. Apologetic, and yet foreign. Something was there that... it sounded very weird, but... something was there that wasn't Cloud.

"What is it?"

"_Lover, dear lover, I've had a fell dream:  
__My mother's adrift on the sea._"

"Cloud..." Tifa sat up beside him, and softly lay a hand on his shoulder, "It was just a dream. Cloud, your mother's fine, she's... in the lifestream now." she bit her lip, "She's dead."

Cloud shook his head, "No... no she's not."

"What?"

"_My brothers have left her alone in the gale,  
__there's no-one to save her but me._"

"Brothers? What brothers? Cloud, what are you talking about. You're awake now."

"Kadaj... Loz and Yazoo..." Cloud whispered, "My brothers..."

Tifa swallowed. This was... worrying her now. She silently thanked the dark for hiding the fear in her eyes. "No, Cloud. They're not."

He looked at her questioningly. Still, though... it wasn't like him.

"Come on..." she cooed. "You don't need to worry about that, she's... they're all okay.  
_My dear, my dear, lay down your fair head.  
__I've given you love, and I've given my bed,_"

Silently, Cloud consented to lay down again, though he shied away from Tifa's touch, and turned to look up at his sword, mounted carefully on the wall.

"_And your mother is sleeping,_"  
Tifa tried.  
"_she's well and she's hale._"

'**_Cloud..._**'

-

In the morning they sat down at the table in the bar, beside plates of eggs and toast. The two were silent, Tifa trying not to, but finding her eyes constantly wandering over to the swordsman... observing him.

At one point, Cloud stopped. He just froze... in the middle of an action, his fork held in his hand, empty, halfway to his plate to get more egg. His eyes went wide, then grew dim, and at last closed.

'**_Cloud, come to me... don't you love your mother?_**'

He looked up worriedly at Tifa a moment after that. She was standing now, leaning over the table and watching him pointedly. "What just happened?" she demanded softly, but sternly.

"_Lover, dear lover, she's crying my name:  
__My mother's adrift on the sea._"

"Cloud..." she tried.

'**_Don't listen._**'

"No, you don't... you can't..." the man tried to explain, standing up, his hands on the sides of his head, "I can _hear_ her..."

_She's none to protect her, no oar and no sail,  
__there's no-one to save her but me._

'That's... not good...' Tifa walked quickly around. "Cloud you can't be thinking about this now... it's... it's bad for you."

He looked up, "What else is there?"

She smiled a little bit more, "I have something you might like to know... it'll take your mind off of these things."

'**_Don't listen._**'

"_My dear, my dear, another will come.  
__I've given you family, I'll give you a son,_"  
Tifa smiled a little wider, placing a hand on her stomach, "It's true. It's real. Cloud isn't that... isn't that wonderful?"

_and your mother is singing,  
__she's well and she's hale._

Cloud just silently looked down. "It's... not the same."

-

Turning over in her sleep, Tifa felt emptiness next to her. She opened her auburn eyes, looking around in the shadows of night to try and find what was missing. "Cloud...?"

She sat up. The shelves on his side of the room were haphazardly rummaged through, clothing hanging from out of them, and thrown all over the floor. His sword was gone from its place on the wall.

With a gasp, she quickly sat up, pulling a robe on over her silken nightgown as she padded down the halls barefoot. She caught him at the front door, leaning over and opening the lock.

"Cloud!" she called, her voice wavering.

He stopped, and looked up, straightened, and turned to her. His clear ocean eyes were now murky pools of green as he calmly raised a hand to silence her. "Before you even ask... I'll just explain it to you." he said in a cold, alien voice, strangely stern and unemotional.

"_Lover, dear lover, there are tears on her gown:  
__My mother's adrift on the sea._"

"No, not this again..." Tifa said, her hands were on her cheeks, water running from her eyes through her fingers, "...not this... not again... Cloud, not you."

Cloud merely continued as if she hadn't even spoken. "The others were not... capable enough.  
_Her sons have all left her, I cannot now fail,  
__there's no-one to save her but me.  
_I'd always stopped them in the past. Sephiroth was a maniac, Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo mere children... but I..." he smiled wickedly. "Who will stop me?"

"No..." she shook her head, and took a shaky step closer. The sword resting on Cloud's shoulder, in an instant, was hovering out in front of him, his arm outstretched, the tip pointing directly at her, mere inches away. "No, Cloud!" she screamed. "Please, don't give in to her...!"

'**_Give in to me..._**'

"_My dear, my dear, you've seen an untruth.  
__I've given you joy and I've given you youth,_"  
She tried vainly to beg him to stay again, but he was already turning towards the door and opening it.  
"_and your mother has comfort,  
_Your real mother, Cloud! Not Jenova! Jenova _murdered_ your real mother! Why are you going to her!"

_she's well and she's hale._

'**_Come to me. Child, come to me._**'

Cloud looked absently out the window on the upper half of the door for a moment, before giving a nod to some silent direction the woman had not heard, before he turned back to her. "I will invite you to my Reunion." He said cordially, then turned.

The door slammed. He was gone. Tifa sank to her knees, her shoulders heaving with sobs. "No, Cloud…_  
Don't let your feet touch the earth,_"

But she'd already heard the crunch of his boots on the gravel outside, and felt her entire self go weak. She doubled over, her hands fisting and slamming on the floor as she cried,

"_Come back to me.  
_Don't make us all go through this again, don't…  
_Come back to me._"

History repeats itself.

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Not quite as I wanted it, but good enough. I like my end to this one... very very much. But not so much the middle and the beginning. The middle is better than the middle in the first one. Okay, I'll stop rambling now.


	11. Confession

**Author's Beginning Note Thingy:** As always, just a little itty bit of rewriting went into this song. Lots of Heatherdale's things include specific people-names or place-names, or situations from the genres they were originally written about. The pairing is sort of Vincent/Yuffie, though I don't mention it outright until the end... I think it's pretty obvious the whole way through. And the song was very Vincent. Very very Vincent. Enjoy.

---

Confession

Through the waterfall he went once more. For a moment the rushing roar of it consumed him before he was through on the other side, and opened his eyes to the eerie blueness that met him, gleaming off the mako walls and illuminating the small cave area.

He gave a bitter smile as he looked up at the far pillar of crystals where an ethereal human shape could just barely be made out within it.

"I'm back." he said softly, "You were right. You're always right. When you said I'd just end up right back here. And for the same reason to..." he sighed as he drew closer, and at last sat down in the dust at the base of the pillar, looking up, "I've done it again."

_So here I am again, I think I've sinned.  
__I can't exactly place the how or why._

"I only wanted to help..." he murmured, looking down at his lap. "I guess it didn't work. I'm not the one for her, I can't do anything for her.'

_I tried to be a brother and a friend,  
__I never dreamed she'd give this winged reply._

"You remember, don't you?  
_The one I told you all about,  
__the pretty one who came to us so devout._"

he repeated again to her, as if she hadn't silently heard the story time and time again before.

"She was so excited to join us and help us, even though she was young..." he went on, "...and in a way she was too young, even. Despite her skills. She didn't know what to do, or how to cope...  
_She told me all the things she felt she'd lost,  
__and all the things she feared to be without._

_I told her all the things that I'd been told,  
__those comforts that I took when I was young.  
__But still I think she only saw me old.  
__I don't know what I said to make her run._"

He slid over along the ground, not caring that he was dirtying his pants or cloak, and leaned his head on the icy glasslike rock. "Then again, I am turning sixty next month... if you count the coffin years." a grimace flashed over his thin lips, before he went back to musing and remembering. "There wasn't really much common ground between us. What I had to tell didn't apply to her." he heaved a sigh, "And even so, I just don't have a way with words. Even you ran off when I proposed."

_So here I am again, I think I've sinned.  
__I can't exactly place the how or why.  
__I tried to be a brother and a friend,  
__I never dreamed she'd give this winged reply._

"Nobody saw this coming. Nobody could have guessed how quickly she'd give up on something she supported so strongly up until now..." Vincent swallowed, "The whole group. Everyone."

_She's given up it all, the vows she'd sworn,_

"Then again, given her background of princess-hood, and her personality, she's not exactly one to easily subject herself to confinement and the redundancy of what we do."

_abandoned any effort to conform.  
__Without a word to anyone she's gone her way alone,  
__a dove escaping back into the storm._

"I fear for her." he admitted softly, with a shudder, as if the very concept of him, that imperturbable member of their party could possibly feel such an awful emotion for somebody, "She's strong, yes, and experienced for her age, mostly in part to us. But I haven't heard from her in so long..." he swallowed, trailing off, before taking another, stuttering start.

"I thought there was... something of you in her. I thought that she and I could connect as you and I did..." he looked up into the mako crystal, to meet Lucrecia's unchanging expression as the slightly bowed head looked back down at him.

_I tried to show her I could understand,  
__but still she chose to leave me for the cold.  
_"_It makes me doubt the person that I am,  
__and, god forgive me, all that I've been told._"

What was this wet heat in his eyes? With his human hand, the gunman quickly reached up and wiped the blurriness away, before leaning forward and resting his head against the hard rock in front of him, his arms spreading out to embrace it, as if it could be felt by the person inside as well.

"I should've never even tried. Yuffie..."

_So here I am again, I think I've sinned.  
__I can't exactly place the how or why.  
__I tried to be a brother and a friend,  
__I never dreamed she'd give this winged reply._


	12. Inspiration

Inspiration

_With your grace as inspiration I will prove my love to you_

This was certainly not the way anyone had expected things to end up. There'd been numerous speculations, mostly between the women of the group, over 'who ends up with who' after the adventure was all over... but Cloud, at least, could honestly say that he never saw himself in this place.

_when I stand in polished armor on the field._

This was such a silly tradition... but he knew how important tradition was to the Wutaians, so he was going through with it. Clad in the medieval-style armor of the little country, he had to fight his way through a whole troop of suitors before he could reach the prize, though he hated to think of her like that...

_I will bow towards your beauty as you stand beside your father,_

And there she was... lovely and kimono-clad, the subtle rosy folds fluttering gently along in the wind right beside her short sable hair. Godo stood beside her in a sagely pose, overseeing the matches.

_with passion in my heart I shall not yield._

For the most part, the group who had lined up to face him were anywhere from people who were looking to get lucky with a princess, to fat aristocrats' sons that wanted to marry into power, to some actually intimidating looking swordsman who were trying to keep an outsider away from the royal line.

But if there was nothing else, there was one huge difference between Cloud and them.

Cloud bore the princess' favor.

_With your grace as inspiration I will proudly bear your token  
__when I stand in burnished steel before my foe._

A small red cloth tied securely around his right arm, the bottom of which was adorned with blue-green dragon's claw clasping a bright green orb, no doubt Yuffie's heraldic rendition of materia.

And so now, in the heat of the summer sun, he was sweating beneath the leather and steel strappings, tied on with taut cord, and belted around himself, as he went through the motions of his swordplay. The heavy equipment severely hampered his movement, but none of these people were a match for the man who had defeated Sephiroth... twice.

_I will do you honor justice with the strength of arm and spirit,  
__and will fight with all the prowess that I know._

_With your grace as inspiration I will strive to be the victor  
__over one who strives as fervently as I_

And in the occasional breaks between bouts, he would look over to the shaded pagoda where Yuffie and Godo stood, beneath the cover of the peach leaves, and catch the glimmer of her proud smile as she watched him... and that was enough to quench any thirst, or cool any sweltering heat, and let him fight on... for her.

_to earn a maiden's favor for the bold young man before her,  
__to see his love reflected in her eye._

-

There was only one more time Cloud would need to go through with another of Wutai's 'silly' armor-wearing traditions...

_With your grace as inspiration I will prove my love to you  
__when I stand in polished armor on the field._/

The wind played at his and her hair, he wore the polished ebony platemaille of Wutai, and she wore a pure, snow-white yukata as they stood in the middle of the sunlit plain that August. Godo had walked her up the aisle, as was the universal custom, and he and Cloud had respectfully, if a little stiffly, bowed to one another, symbolizing the passing of respect and right from one to the other...

_I will bow towards your beauty as you stand beside your father,_

As they lowered the gleaming silver circlet onto his head, Cloud wondered if, perhaps, despite everything else he had faced, being the king of Wutai would be the hardest thing for him to accomplish yet... But as always, when he looked over to the youthful beaming face he'd become forever bound to just today, and stared into her smiling stormy eyes, he knew whatever lay ahead, it was very worth it.

_with passion in my heart I shall not yield._

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy:** Song requested by Lucifer's Seraphim, an Ealdormerian... and he and I will probably be the only ones who know what that is. XD Ah well. I'm glad someone who reads this fic knows these songs, and I hope I did it justice for you... I realize it's taken me a while to get an idea I felt was worthy of this song, but here it is. Clouffie... heheh, can't say I've ever written that one before. XP


	13. As I Am

As I Am

Cloud emerged from the dressing room backstage at the Gold Saucer to find Aeris already patiently waiting for him. He looked down at his booted feet as his face flushed. It could have been worse, he supposed... he was thoroughly glad to be out of the ridiculous, itchy costume they'd put him in. That much, at least, he didn't have to be embarrassed about anymore.

_I suppose that I look different  
__without the robes and crown._

On the other hand, there was still plenty he could say he was... ashamed of. He couldn't look into her sparkling eyes as she reached out and gently took his hand. He had nothing to offer... nothing to give. Not a home, not a life, nothing... and yes, Aeris was just a poor girl from lower-plate Midgar, but she deserved better. He was nothing, and she deserved much, much more than that.

_I come, this day, before you  
__with no riches, no renown.  
__For here I am no leader,  
__I am just a humble man,_

But still, could he try? Would he find the nerve to? He couldn't even find the strength to curl his fingers around her slender wrist... how could she love someone as weak as that? But then, this was Aeris... maybe, just maybe...

_and I only ask you take me,  
__you take me as I am._

Despite his lack of cooperation, her smile was just as bright, her gait just as eager and excited as she practically danced around the outer edge of the amphitheatre going back toward the station. She still held on tight, despite his limp and unhelpful arm. Held onto his rough, sweaty swordsman's hand with hers... which was cool, but... also rough. He wondered at that. A woman's hands... a civilian's hands... why were they so hard?

He at last forced himself to look at her, even if only a piece of her. The hand that lay so securely in his. Thin, frail, even... but smeared with dirt, grit and soil under the nails that she'd forgotten, or been unable to clean out.

_I'm not looking for perfection,  
__I'm not offering a saint._

A gardener, he remembered. Aeris was a gardener. He remembered the paradise of her home in sector 4, a veritable greenhouse that bloomed without the sun beneath Midgar, the sanctuary of the church, the beauty...

_I'm not looking for a pretty bird  
__to put in some restraint._

And he'd taken her from it. Strangely, though, guilt didn't hit him again at that thought. Instead of looking away, he determinedly followed the ivory trail up her arm to where it met the red of her shirt and stopped there, near her shoulder. It was progress. But why...? What good could have possibly come of stealing her from her home?

Freedom. That was it. He'd delivered her, an airy and earthy spirit from the dark enclosed cage that was the old terrible city. He barely knew her then, there, within the shadow... but her eyes had never been as bright as they were now, glinting in the manycolored lights. He'd taken her from that rusted enclosure, stood by her side, held her hand, just like this, the whole time 'til now. He'd shown her a world she'd never known she was a part of... shown her the sky beyond the plate, shown her fertile ground and flowers that grew without painstaking cultivation... free-flowing rivers and real wind.

_That_ was what he'd given her... _So..._ he thought a little more brightly, _So maybe it doesn't matter if I don't have the other things..._ A rare smile played across his lips. She didn't notice, too busy dragging him on ahead, the leader herself for once. It didn't matter. If that wasn't enough... then what more could he do?

_The only thing I want  
__is that you love me if you can,  
__and I only ask you take me,  
__you take me as I am._

"You're different." she said, and he shook his head, scattering spikes in haphazard directions, and looked up, suddenly realizing he hadn't been paying attention, and mentally scolding himself for it. What was she talking about? "Things are different." Aeris finished up with a sure nod and a look at the ground.

She was beautiful... the fleeting light of the fireworks outside was casting a graceful rainbow over the soft features of her face. One flash matched the pink of her dress, one accentuating the green of her eyes, a shower of silver sparks lit up her timid smile. Cloud drew in a nervous breath.

"Cloud... I'm searching for you." she said cryptically, her voice holding a hint of need he was unsure what to do with, "I want to meet you."

"But I'm right here." he babbled clumsily.

Aeris seemed to heave an exasperated sigh, and shook her head. "No, I want to meet... you."

Cloud gulped, choking down apprehension. He realized. How long? How long had she known? How long had she been seeing through his disguise? When did she first pierce it and glimpse the true soul within... or, if not that, at least figure out that the outer shell was a fake? And the most difficult question yet... would he ever willingly show her?

_I offer you a look inside,  
__I offer you that trust._

But this was _Aeris_... why did he even need to think twice? She wouldn't, couldn't hurt him. She didn't have it in her. After all... months they had spent together... he remembered standing with her amidst the flower-spotted grasslands East of Midgar, the moody seashore of Junon with its iridescent oil-blossoms skimming the water's surface, the scarlet plateaus of Cosmo Canyon, the sharp grey Nibel mountain range. Months they'd spent together, a world they'd seen together, and yet not once had she, had he _allowed_ her to see the one thing that had been next to her the whole time. Himself.

Eventually, he thought, that would discourage her... wouldn't it? Would he lose her? No, that was a thought to dark and distant to handle.

_I need your strength to help me fight  
__the battles that I must._

The constant conflict... the so-called 'adventure' and every demon they met along the way. Cloud couldn't imagine waking each morning knowing he'd have to face all of it _without_ her... without her support, her gentle healing magic, her sweet smile every sunny morning, chasing the night and its torpid dreams away.

_I need you to remind me  
__of the light we bear within,  
__that there's more to life than struggle  
__and the things we seek to win._

_Don't take me out of duty,  
__don't take me out of pride,_

The thought of being her 'leader', the thought of the potential tension with Tifa, none of this was on his mind any longer. He'd already settled with many more complex, he felt, problems, and satisfied himself. And so had Aeris, or else she wouldn't be here.

_just take me if the man you see  
__is one you'd stand beside._

The gondola ground to a stop and he lurched slightly in his seat as it did so. The doors slid open and Aeris gave that characteristic miniscule smile and stood up, smoothing her dress down over her legs in a ladylike fashion. He rose as well, much less gracefully... but it didn't matter. He was... Cloud was Cloud, in that moment... the one instant in such a long time... but with any luck, such moments would be happening far more frequently, and last much longer.

_I'm offering an open heart,_

She started to walk out, but he caught her, throwing out an arm to block the doorway. Aeris paused and then turned a questioning look up. He smiled, and shifted the arm, bending awkwardly at the elbow and turning, palm-up, fingers flat. An offer, a... request, no, a plea...

_I'm asking for your hand,_

The girl's cheeks dimpled and she rocked back onto her heels with a little giggle, lifting a hand to cover her mouth as she did so. Cloud felt his already somewhat stale smile wilt momentarily... but the laugh was meant only in jest, as Aeris proved by quickly reaching out with that same hand and taking his, knitting their fingers together as they walked out...

_and I only ask you take me,  
__you take me as I am._

"I had fun tonight." she bashfully admitted, her voice suppressed to a hush, as if she was embarrassed that the staff-lady in the booth over to the left would overhear. Cloud didn't mind... didn't mind that Aeris was still innocent enough to hide it, to treat... all this like she was a teenager sneaking out to her first date (it was his first, too). The compliment bolstered his slow-growing confidence, and at last he believed... believed that he was worthy.

_You take me as I am._

Hand in hand, they matched one-another's footsteps while walking out, arms swinging freely within the slight gap between them. Aeris turned her head and tilted her chin up to meet Cloud's eyes, and he looked straight back for the first time that evening... let alone the entire time they'd known one another. She breathed a relief-filled sigh and suggested, "Let's go together again."

---

**Author's Ending Note Thingy: **Whew. It's been a LONG time since Daughter of Night requested that I write this one… but I DID get around to it. This is the first of (hopefully) a few more pre-two-week-camping-trip fic updates… I decided to start the creative juices flowing and get into the Pennsic spirit by writing this here... wish me luck on all future updates. I got three days (and four hours and counting) to wrap all current half-finished chapters up. Can I do it? We'll see! Leave a review for motivation!


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